…was created by a daily communicant who personally knew most the 6 Popes who reigned during her lifetime.

Needless to say the more I’ve learned, the more I feel like I have found the authentic face of Catholic education and parenting. Apparently the Missionaries of Charity agree as they now use the method at their missions.

Unfortunately the “Montessori” name was never copyrighted and so thus many of Maria Montessori’s original writings, as well as the educational program as practiced today in many “Montessori” schools, has had much of the blatant Catholic ethos withdrawn from it.

What results is that many Catholics (including myself until three weeks ago) are unfamiliar with the teaching method based off Aquinas’s theology of the human person which had been planned to be the universal education syllabus of the Church prior to Pope Benedict the XV’s death.

There is no reason for me to try and explain something as in depth as the Montessori method, so do yourself a favor (especially if you have kids or plan to) and download the talks I’ve linked below.

The talks were passed on to me by a friend and I’m not sure of their origin beyond the fact that the speaker is Maggie Radzik (Foundress and Head Catechist/Parent Education of Siena Academy in Great Falls, Virginia) and that I have permission to share the audio. You can learn about Maggie and the Montessori Method here.

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]http://www.ignitumtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Steven-Lawson-e1313151202718.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Steven Lawson is a newly married young adult living in the Diocese of Buffalo NY. After a reversion from agnosticism during a semester working in NYC, he felt called to ministry in the Church and left his dream since youth of working in film and animation. Steven is the founder of Why I’m Catholic, a website designed to bring Catholic conversion stories to the web 2.0, specifically to young adults. During the day Steven works on iCatholicRadio (the first dedicated Catholic radio application for Apple and Android mobile devices) and various other new media outreaches for The Station of the Cross Catholic Radio. He is also currently pursuing a Masters in Pastoral Theology from the Augustine Institute in Denver, Colorado.[/author_info] [/author]

Barbara Curtis, who blogs at MommyLife.net, has just started a whole series of posts on Maria Montessori. She is a Montessori teacher and a mom, and has a VERY interesting conversion story. Montessori’s schools originally all taught Catholicism, and those lessons are the basis of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program, which was developed the same way she worked — very carefully, over years of observing children interacting with the materials and responding to the lessons. Maria Montessori was a genius and part of her success was actually seeing how children learned, and then creating lessons, rather than coming up with a grand theory and then trying it out in classrooms. She had a huge respect for children. IF you are interested, check out MommyLife, it’s always interesting!

Gail – I will definately check out the series, thank you for sharing it. I may see if she would be interested in sharing her conversion story on http://www.whyimcatholic.com as well!

Kayla – The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is fascinating. In the talks Maggie states that some groups (I believe the missionaries of charity) are using it as a basic catechesis for adults as well! I live in Buffalo and the Diocese of Toronto offers training classes, I hope to make it up there at some point.

Thank you Edward, I think that makes you our resident Montessori expert!

Eddie

Not even close, Steve. I simply have a great interest in learning more about true Catholic educators and their respective theories and methodologies of education owing to the fact that so much of what I “study” in my graduate education courses is bunk…or worse. We consider Marxists, for instance. I understand the value of knowing about erroneous philosophies, theories, and methodologies… However, although I’m nearing the end of this graduate track, I have not heard a single professor bring up Aquinas’ understanding of epistemology. …I can point to a slew of other deficiencies as well.